One More Time
by Leelan
Summary: AU Justin is a DJ making his way into the club scene. Distractions (Brian) are bound to turn up.
1. Seemingly Random Words

One More Time

Location: Apartment of Daphne and Justin

Time: 1:36pm

Status: Comatose

But not for long...

"Justin"

"............"

"Wake up."

"Mmmm five more minutes mom."

Daphne pulled the sheets of her roommate sharply, exposing him to the chilly morning air. Justin's face scrunched up in protest and his toes curled up into his thighs, desperately trying to rekindle his lost body heat. His eyes did not open.

Daphne knew that he had been up most of last night working on his computer. His keyboard that was wired to his computer had a collection of cups and plates surrounding it. He was always doing things like that, working on his songs all night when he knew he had a gig the following evening.

She decided to punish his idiocy by sticking her hands in her morning coffee and flicking the warm liquid on to her friend. He twitched though he still did not move. She rolled her eyes; well if torture didn't work she'd have to try bribery.

She started slinging out seemingly random words towards his dozing head. To most they would make no sense, but for Justin there inspired phenomenal physical change.

"Dance"

He started squirming.

"Music"

"Gig"

He made a soft noise begging for more sleep.

"Money"

"Babylon"

His eyes shot open, turning towards his smirking roommate, he gave his best 'I just woke up and it's all your fault' glare.

"You're evil." He stated.

"You did it to yourself dear."

"Humph"

"Now get up and have lunch, it's to late for breakfast. You have to be at the club by 5 to set up, that'll give you enough time to shower and transfer your songs, cos knowing you they are still in software am I right?"

"… I was getting to it but I fell asleep, I had to finish Epitone first and Rapture Mix 4 wasn't sinking right."

"Uh, you are the worst perfectionist, Justin! The songs are great, accept it."

"Daph" Justin sat up and swirled his feet to the hard wood floor with a soft thump.

"My songs are like my children."

Daphne stared at Justin blankly woundering if that was supposed to mean something to her.

"I don't want them to grow up."

"Oh you sap!"

"I know, I can't help it. Please save me Daph, I need protection from myself and others."

Daphne rolled her eyes.

"Come on music boy, lets get you some lunch."

Justin smiled his speacial smile that only appeared with the mention of food.

"Yay! Sustinance!"

They moved into the kitchen and began preparing for Justin's formal debut as a professional DJ at Pitsburges best, gay dance club.


	2. Curry Bagels

Part 2

Location: Liberty Avenue

Time: 4:12pm

Status: Walking to Babylon, note: quick detour for bagels.

"So I was like, 'On a scale of one to ten exactly how illegal is what you want me to do?'. She said.."

"Ow!"

"No that's not it she, Oh Justin! What happened? Are you ok?"

Justin was kneeling over clutching his nose

"I'hm fime!"

He was defiantly not telling her he walked straight into a lamp post, distracted by looking at the unspeakably gorgeous brunette across the street. Justin removed his hands from his face as the sting settled to a dull throb. Shaking of Daphne's concerns and the questions that came with it. He started walking again though more wobbly than before.

"Stupid post, why'd they put it there were anyone could run into it."

Oops, gave himself away. At least not entirely.

"Why'd you do that?" Daphne asked when she was again walking beside him.

Danger! Not good. Must not let full extent of stupidity be known. Um, distraction!

"Look, books."

Daphne just stared at him and blinked. Not working, need bigger distraction.

"Look, cute boys kissing."

Success!

Justin smiled, straight woman where a mystery, but through living with one for the past 2 years he had learned some interesting and not well known facts.

"So I'll go get our bagels now."

"Mmm"

"I'll just get curry on yours."

"Uhuh"

"And you'll give me all your money?"

"Sure"

"Excellent I'll be right back."

Such as in some ways, how shockingly similar they are to straight men. Just cross out lesbians and stick in gay guys. Now where did that brunette go? Looking around he couldn't see him anywhere. This was most disappointing. Frowning he walked into the bakery, and there he was.

When the hell did he cross the street? How could I not notice. I should have felt his radiating hotness moving closer. Curses! I must be loosing my touch. Oooo he's talking. He has such a soft grumbling voice, it's like velvet. He could be a singer. He must be a singer and them we can jam together late into the night and fall asleep huddled over song lyrics and music sheets, and in the night I could huddle closer and fondle his manly body, and he would awaken under my touch, and look wantonly into my eyes and lean forward slowly closing his eyes and...

He's gone.

Justin swirled around wear he stood scanning his line of sight for the object of his fantasies. He was no wear to be found. Justin's heart sank just a little.

Curse this run away imagination of mine!

He let out an short rawr of frustration, and stomped his way outside the shop to meet the waiting Daphne.

"So wear's my bagel?"

He looked at her like that was the least significant thing she could have uttered at that point in time, to him it was.

Glaring into space he muttered under his breath.

"They didn't have any curry."

Daphne made a face.

"Curry? Yuk!"

t/b/c


	3. So Freaking Cool

Part 3

Location: Babylon, DJ Booth

Time: 10:56pm

Status: Kickin' Ass!

I am so freaking cool.

Look at me, spinning the mix, pushing the slides.

I did most of the work at home. This my chance to show of all my hard work and brilliant skills.

Oh no, missed the scynth by half a sec, gotta fix it.

That's better, I can't screw this up, this is my big chance. I gotta show them all what I can do.

Must not fail.

I can see Daphne grooving out on the dance floor.

She moves perfectly with the music cos she's heard all my stuff a million times before.

The other dancers don't look as comfortable.

It's not what they're used to. They'd start dancing and bring out familiar moves but then the song would move in a direction that they did not know, and the movement would end up looking awkward and out of place. The more expeirinced dancers seemed to see it as a new challenge, a small number have given up and are sitting on the sidelines drenched in sweat. The rest were to high to care, they'd just move any way that feels good and hope they don't take out any eyes.

I admit my style is a little different then the usual dance club stuff, but I was careful to pick songs that would not seem totally out of place here.

It's all techno.

I wounder if they mind that some songs are in different languages? I didn't think of that.

Just then I realize I can feel the presance of the person behind me. There breath is wafting from the shadows against the wall. Please don't let it be that creepy owner guy. What was his name? Some hippy name. Tree Sap?

I feel a sharp thump against my shoulder and turn with a gasp.

"Daphne!"

Okay I can start breathing again. Aww my coke's all over the floor.

"Never ever do that, look you made me spill my drink."

She just smirked in that smug little way that I hate. Like I'm an annoying wind up toy she'd could smash but can't be bothered.

"Chill Blondie it's 12 already, breaktime. Wake up your muscles and get us some more drinks. I'll watch the booth."

I instinctively go into protective mode and leer predatorly, sliding my gaze between her the the turners rythmicly. Daphne has been with me since I got my first keyboard, and it's not like I don't trust her, or that I'm the jelous type. I just don't like people touching what is mine."

She can ofcourse read me like a bad romance novel and gives me more of that look while leaning me towards the steps. She knows that sometimes I need a little push towards a more sane way of thinking.

So the sets halfway done and so far no one has screamed for the bad noise to go away. I must not be doing to badly then, but it's hard work and I have to really consentrate. Which is not easy when you have other things on your mind. The incident on the way here has been doing a rounds in my head all night. I'd think about it, then push it from my mind, and then about an hour later it will pop back up out of nowhere. I feels like my mind is stuck on repeat.

I walk down the steps from the DJ booth and squeaze my way towards the bar for a much deserved drink.

At the counter I signal the bar tender for a coke, I have to keep away from the alcohol while I'm working. I look up towards the DJ booth and try to see the girl is breathing to close to the conrol panel. How Soon Is Now is just melting in. I'd taken parts from two bands different versions of this song and welded them together in a kind of topsy tervy duet.

The artists would never come up with an idea that good.

My drink was slided across to me and slapped into my hand covering my palm with the glasses cold dew. Damn forgot Daphne's. I signaled for another.

"Hi how you doing?"

To my left stood a man about my height, with dark hair and a pointy face. He looked a fair bit older but didn't have that nasty old man air about him that most older guys that hit on him did.

This was the first person he had met inside the club, so he decided to take this oppertunity to find out what the crowd thought of his stuff.

"Do you like the music?"

The man looked shocked that Justin had spoken back to him. Justin got the feeling that he was turned down alot.

"Er it's alright erm.. I thought that version of Madam Butterfly earlier was.. um.. different."

Well that wasn't to bad of a review. I'll just talk to him for a little bit as a reward. He seems lonely.

"Yeah the last song is the best, just when her husband returns and he looks at her dieing. I think she seems very confused then."

The man's face lights up instantly and he starts prattling on seemlessly about how I'm wrong and what it really meant. I wonder what he's doing in a place like this?

I could hardly get a word in and he'd been talking for about two minutes when Daphne gave me the signal that it was time to get back to work. I nodded and turned back towards the man. Breaking more forcfully into his speach I explained.

"I have to get back to work."

"Oh are you a go go boy?"

He looked me up and down. A pair of old jeans and a navy sweater wrapped around my hips to keep them from sagging. No shirt and no jewelry besides his nipple ring. When Justin worked he liked to be comfortable. On his back was a large magic marker tattoo of a phoenix a cutie from PIFA had done Friday, it was supposed to be 'for luck'.

Picking up the drinks that were waiting on the counter Justin pushed of from the bar.

"No"

Heh,

Keep him guessing.

With a quirky smile he moved into the crowd and was swallowed by it before the man could see wear he was going.

t/b/c..

Coming next: Other POV's!


	4. Happy Lovers

Justin woke up at three o'clock in the afternoon. Not a bad time considering he went to sleep close to six am. He was already out of bed when Daphne walked in with a cup of coffee. Justin was fingering through his old fashioned Compact Disc collection. To someone who buys, sells and creates all his own music on computer, anything bought in hard copy is considered out of date.

Pulling out one of his favourites Justin inserted it into his computer and brought it up in his main media player. Unplugging the headphone's from the speakers the song intro started up and Daphne groaned.

"You are so weird, it's like a whole new definition of the word." She growled above the volume.

Smirking, Justin lowered the volume control. They had a long standing debate on what could be considered music and what was just pretty noise.

"Come on, it's good." He plopped down beside her and started sniffing around her coffee, it smelled good.

"There not even real Lesbians. Not even Bi. There Fakes."

He had the target in his site. Just need to work out the right angel to tilt it with minimum spillage on his sheets and maximum coffee in his mouth.

"Fakes with a great sound team." And go!

Yes. He'd successfully tilted Daphne's cup into his mouth while she was studying his TATU poster, just like she did every day. Only four drops on his Ying Yang bed sheets. She didn't even notice, he was improving his technique.

Mmmmm good coffee.

"So go worship there sound team, and take the stupid poster down, it's embarrassing."

"Go look at your own walls."

"And leave you to wake up in your own time? You'd sleep like, twenty four hours at a time."

"Don't exaggerate, it'd only be about half that."

Rolling her eye's Daphne placed her cup (with less in it then she remembered there being) on Justin's desk top between the numerous dishes already there (she'd swear half the kitchen was in here.) and lay back on Justin's bed.

"So who was the guy at the bar last night?"

"Just a test bunny." That was there term for someone picked at random to hit on for the soul purpose of asking randomly for reviews of Justin's music.

Reaching her arm forward Daphne let her fingertips flutter along the edges of the Gryphon design on Justin's back. The paints had run last night from all the heat and sweat. Justin curled a little further in on himself. He knew what Daphne meant.

"I don't need a boyfriend Daph." He turned to face her, showing how serious he was.

She just gave him that sympathetic look that only crosses from someone who has a partner to someone without one. Phycologically she knew that it was possible to function without another person, but she was in love and that meant her best friend had to be in love too so he could be as happy as she was.

"Take a shower." She ordered, getting up and grabbing her coffee. Walking towards the door. "You stink."

Grabbing a towel from the hall closet she tossed it at him, covering his face in pink fluffy towelness. When she was out of sight Justin stopped his CD, ejected and placed it carefully back in it's case, then in it's alphabetical slot on the CD tower.

Curious he lifted an arm and stuck his nose in his armpit. Oh ok, ew, bad, bad smell. Shower seriously needed. Grabbing the towel he walked into the bathroom and started up the shower.

Letting the water run Justin twisted infront of the mirror, trying to see the drawing on his back. It had run slightly in black rivulets down his skin. He was sad to see it go, it was really beautiful and he felt it had given him luck last night. Pushing down the pants he'd slept in Justin studied his body. Maybe he could get it done as a tattoo, Blain would love the free advertising. Design students were whores that way.

Getting in the shower the hot water stung his sensitive skin making him wince and jump. Maybe not a permanent tattoo then, there where other ways. He could get it done in henna, that was fairly painless and could last for weeks. It would be a dark orange colour though, not black like ink or the marker had been.

Shaking his head the water splashed across the shower's glass door. Time to think about work, someone from the club was going to call him tomorrow morning with word on how his debut was taken, judging on that they would decide if they still required his services. He felt things had gone well last night. By four am most had left or where getting ready to leave. He'd had no complaints.

By the time the music had stopped for the night, Justin was exhausted. An all nighter would take a lot out of anyone. Usually a night at a club is taken in shifts atleast two DJ's, but because some of there regulars had skipped town and they were desperate they'd taken a chance on Justin. Being a new name he'd had to prove himself by going beyond what was normally asked.

Wondering made his guts ache, he had to stay positive, he had to believe that DJ Sunshine was good enough for them. He wouldn't allow himself to think any other way about it, if he did he'd probably throw up.

Today was going to be the hardest part. Daphne was of to spend the night with her boyfriend, a guy named Joe, an openly bisexual accounting major who liked to pinch Justin's butt, made great french toast and could make Daphne scream like the universe was ending most nights he stayed over. She'd go to school with him tomorrow taking her car, leaving Justin to catch the bus to PIFA.

When he'd finished showering, and the black ink running down the drain around his feet had given way to clear water, Justin got out and drying of, walked into the living room. Daphne was on the couch with a full backpack at her feet, watching Daredevil. Justin wrapped the towel securely around his waist and sat down beside her.

"So when are you going to Joe's?"

Daphne didn't look away from the screen.

"He's picking me up."

Joe got wheels? Did this mean Justin got to play with Daphne's car?

"Since when does he have a car?" Justin leaned forward and picked up the remote.

"Since monday, you should see him, he's so proud of himself."

"For buying a car?"

Justin fast forwarded the hetero sex scene.

"I don't know, he just spends a lot of time rubbing it with a cloth and whispering to it. I think I'm jealous."

"What kind is it?"

"Red."

Rolling his eye's Justin hits play as Matt Merdock enters the fancy party and meets the Kingpin.

A knock at the door drawers there attention. Daphne get's up with a smile.

"That'll be your motorsexual lover."

She walked back specifically to slap the back of his head before going back to open the front door.

Switching of the movie Justin got up and walked past the happy lovers, greeting each other in a very happy lovers kind of way. Before he forgot Justin turned to Daphne and decided to ask her while she was distracted.

"Does this mean I can use your car?"

"Mmmmhmmmm" Daphne mumbled around Joe's face. Joe lifted one hand from Daphne's back to give Justin a thumbs up. Signalling that Daphne was ok with that. Nodding Justin walked down the hall into his room and closed the door. Not thinking about how nice it would be if he had someone to be happy lovers with.

t/b/c


	5. Discovery

Part 5

Location: School

Time: 9:06am

Status: Considering becoming a motorsexual.

Daphne's car was very boring looking, but it could go really, really fast. Of course, Justin would never make it go really, really fast. Because he was not a delinquent but a responsible, young adult. So he only burned out the tires once as he left the street and after that he was like a saint all the way to school.

On the drive over, he thought about things. He did not worry, because worrying was unproductive and distracted him from what was important. Like Qui Gon said, 'Be mindful of the future, but not at the expense of the moment.' Jedi Knights were so cool, he had to rent that movie again.

He pulled into the parking garage oposit Discovery Sounds, a local recording company that had _discovered_ they could get several large govenment grants if they took in helpless music students, and tought them how to work for them for minimun wage, while pretending to learn the inner workings of professional music.

Once inside, he hung up his winter coat, and climbed the two flights of stairs to the school's level. Half way up the stairs he had to go to the bathroom. He opted to stop and use the one on the first floor, it was a private investigaters office. He liked to go in there whenever he had an excuse because of a deep seated childhood belief, that lots of interesting things happned around P.I's. So far the most interesting thing to happen was that a man had been crying in a chair once, when he'd come in and had proceeded to collapse onto Justin and sob loudly about some photo's of his wife sitting in a cafe with another man.

Jillian, one of the three partners who owned the business, came in and pried him of Justin and sat him down forcefully into one of the waiting chairs. She gave him a simple statement about jumping to conclusions and even if those conclusions were founded it was all his fault for letting his marriage get to that state. She didn't use big words Jillian, but her tone was so forceful that Justin felt she could convince a lawyer to "not twist words, because it's wrong!". Since that time nothing so interesting had popped up, but Justin still had hope that one day he would walk in on a ninja assasin and Richard in the middle of a heated battle over the life of a helpless client, if only for a change a pace.

Opening the door, Justin peeked in and saw the only change was a new box of doughnuts on the coffee table. Chris must be hear already, he was always the first to arrive. Chris's office door was shut so Justin sneaked by it on tip toe and silently slipped into the bathroom. Of the three investigators, Chris definately liked him the least. He was an older ex-cop, who Justin suspected left the force to escape the mandatory therapy sessions. He claimed it was because he got bored with it, which was stupid because he was the most cronically boring person Justin knew.

Slipping out of the bathroom, he slid across the floor and out the door. Closing it behind him, he thought he heard the sound of Chris's boomarang slicing through the air next to the door. That thing gave him the creeps. Shivering he sped up the stairs and entered Discovery.

Today they would be doing recording, which was both a good and bad thing. Good because it meant he would be helping with the live recording and mixing, and bad because it was boring. Contrary to popular belief, recording a song was not at all interesting. First they would take down one part of the song, the base, the vocals, they had to do each part individually. This would take at the very least, 5 tries to get perfect. Then they fiddled with it in every way imaginable to see what would make it sound best, then repeat this with all parts for every 3 seconds of music. When it's done, if it still dosn't sound right, you have to go over it all again. Justin made his own music so he was used to the work, but at least he didn't have to deal with other people while doing it.

Put on top of all that, moody artists, time budgets, faulty equipment, generally being overworked and grouchyness, it could be hard. But it wasn't all bad, some days things went really wrong and others things went really right. It generally depended on who you where working with.

Justin opened the door of the big studio, where they did all the live recordings, and checked out who he'd be working with today. Okay, there was Erika, Benji, Jamie and Mr Patrick today. Not too bad, Benji and Jamie would take a really long lunch break and Erika would try to read his palm again but atleast Ethan wasn't here. He didn't feel like getting chatted up today, he had to much to do. Shit, the brunette he saw yesterday just popped up in his head again. That shouldn't be happening, the whole point of 12 hour crushes was that they ended after 12 hours. It got worse as images of Daphne, happy in love, filled his head like a whale song. Soft and whining and unstopable.

Shaking his head to clear it, he sat down next to Mr Patrick at the tables and checked that everything was turned on and that all the right buttons where flashing. Erika was helping the artists in the booth with the mic, telling them what cords not to step on if they wanted to live, that kind of stuff. She must have said something weird, like she always did. Because the 3 young men in the booth with her started staring at her before turning to each other with questioning looks. Erika came out of the booth and sat down on Justin's other side.

"The blonde's gonna leave for a group with a record deal soon."

She picked up a textbook on synthisiser wiring and started flipping through it like a magazine. Justin would have groaned but he was to used to her inner weirdness.

"Did you have to tell them that?"

"I didn't, I just told them we don't allow smoking in the building."

Erika looked slyly at his way through slitted eyes. Justin smiled back openly. He knew there was a reason why he liked her occasionally.

"Musicians." He muttered.

They where both fighting grins when Benji came in complaining about being all alone in the little studio. Mr Patrick told him to fuck off very politely and they finally got to work.

To be continued..


	6. Happy Little Worker Bee

Part 6

Location: Going Home

Time: 5:50pm

Status: Hungry

His stomach was eating itself. Digging into his pockets, Justin fingered out his keys and opened the apartment door. He searched the living area for Daphne, before remembering she was spending the night at Joe's place. Heading straight for the kitchen, he dug around behind the pasta until he found Daphne's ultra super secret butter-cookie stash. That of course, everybody knew about. Grabbing a handful, Justin smashed them into his mouth and with one hand opened the fridge and pulled out the milk. Flicking of the lid, he brought it to his lips and gulped down half the carton. A sigh of pure, food consuming bliss left him and he put his milk back in the fridge. Daphne always had a separate carton because, unlike Justin, she believed in using cups.

He thought about the phone call. He had lasted well through out the day, keeping busy and not thinking about it. Now that he was home there was less to distract him. He was never very good at waiting. Tomorrow felt like years away and he was starting to get unhealthy ideas about calling Mr Treesap and demanding an answer now, before his brain implodes. Brain's imploding would be gross, accept you didn't get to see the grossness because it was locked inside your head. That gave him an idea for a song. Grabbing a bowel and filling it with cookies, he went to his room and locked the door. Nobody was home but at least this way there was one more barrier between him and the phone.

He groaned, when he noticed the pile of dishes surrounding his keyboard. It was by now stacked into tower like structures. Putting the cookies on his bed, he quickly did three runs of dishes to the kitchen sink. He'd put them in the dishwasher later. Before he could return to his room the phone rang. For an instant of stupidity, flashes of an impossible future came to life in his head. They'd decided he was so good, they couldn't wait to call another minute. They'd decided he was too terrible not to wait to call for another minute. Recovering from momentary insanity he reached for the phone, and hesitated. He quickly picked it up before he could change his mind and brought it to his ear.

"Mr Taylor."

This guy sounded like Barry White. Scary and at the same time sooooo sexy.

"Yes, who's this?"

"I'm Lou, Mr Sapensteins personal assistant."

Excitement! Possibility! Excitement! Hope! E..

"What can I do for you, Lou?"

It wasn't _exactly_ slave labour. Lou had just made it subtly clear that if he didn't do it he could kiss any further DJ work in their club goodbye. It seemed all of Babylon's employees decided to kick it this month. They now needed GoGo Boys for charity events. Apparently the regulars where not happy about working charity gigs for free. Good will and helping out your fellow man was good only if you got paid, so they refused. Now the big wigs where fizzing out their brains finding ways to get replacements that they didn't have to pay. Enter Justin, everybody's favorite little worker bee. A bit of good news, if he did this the DJ job was his without question.

Hm.

Tough decision time.

"When do you want me?" I am a happy little worker bee.

Watch me buzz.

To be continued...


End file.
